By way of background, there is typically no power control of a GPS device during usage so, once the GPS is powered-on, it will stay on continuously. This is significant because the use of GPS features in a mobile device (whether a stand-alone mobile GPS device or a communication device such as a wireless phone, etc.) consumes a relatively large amount of power.
In stand-alone GPS devices, excessive amounts of power are needed to register the device on the network, as well as constantly run the GPS functionality.
In communication devices where GPS is merely one of the features, the registration or log-on procedure is not as time consuming as for a stand-alone GPS device—because the device is typically already logged into the telecommunication network and may also be linked to satellite signals. Nonetheless, since the battery for an integrated GPS mobile device is shared by both the GPS functionality and mobile communication functionality, it is extremely important to control the battery power consumed by the GPS functionality.
Generally, there are at least two kinds of Location-based Services (LBS) that utilize GPS functionality in a mobile device: mobile originated (MO) LBS and mobile terminated (MT) LBS. For MO LBS, the LBS application is located in the mobile device and the LBS request is originated from the LBS application, e.g. a turn-by-turn directions application or other location-based application. For the MT LBS, the request for the mobile device location is initiated by an LBS application outside the mobile device, e.g., a fleet tracking application that tracks all vehicles (e.g. rented cars or taxis) of a fleet and shows their locations on the map.